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Depressed teens hiding behind 'electronic firewall'

An adolescent psychologist says parents need to watch what their children are doing online.

Robyn Beck: AFP

New worries have been raised about the way children use social networking websites such as MySpace and tools such as MSN Messaging.

Victoria Police have identified two 16-year-old girls who were found dead in bushland in the Dandenong Ranges, north-east of Melbourne.

They had been missing for over a week.

Both girls were avid fans of the website MySpace and police are investigating a mysterious message saying "RIP Steph and Jodie" that appeared on one of their sites a day before they went missing.

Adolescent psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg says parents need to be less cavalier about what their children are doing online.

"At the moment I think in many homes across Australia, kids come home from school and they disappear behind a kind of electronic or emotional firewall where through MSN and the various social networking sites, they basically talk to virtually anyone about anything, and their parents really have no concept of what they're doing," he said.

"I don't want to demonise the Internet, I don't think it's inherently evil, but I do think that some kids who don't have coping skills, who are perhaps disaffected, disaffiliated, will, through the net, link up with other disaffected, disaffiliated kids.

"They'll exchange ideas and do stuff which really as a parent you'd want to know about."

'Drawn to the Internet'

Dr Carr-Gregg says children who struggle to cope in the world are turning to the Internet rather than turning to their parents or their friends.

"I think that depressed kids are naturally drawn to the Internet - one of the key characteristics of being depressed is that you're bombarded by automatic negative thoughts, that you don't particularly want to interact with your peers in the real world," he said.

"This [the Internet] enables you to basically experiment with a variety of very depressing identities - you can be a sort of virtual chameleon, trying out one face after another to find one that fits.

"Add that to membership of a subculture like the 'emos', which are naturally introverted, naturally depressed, encourage self harm, you've got a completely negative environment in which to explore your identity."

Dr Carr-Gregg says a person's MySpace page can give clues to the state of their mental health and claims such as "I want to kill myself" or "Don't be afraid that your life will end" are not to be taken lightly.

"I think it is true to say that we have very good evidence that those sorts of statements, particularly taken in to account with other factors in the kid's life can present part of a jigsaw puzzle, which when put together presents a very disturbing picture.

"You can't afford to ignore it, you have to investigate."

Dr Carr-Gregg says he is worried about the online trend where people leave messages of grief on the website of someone who has taken their own life.

"I think some of the kids who perhaps felt they didn't have an identity in life now have an identity in death and other kids struggling to find identity might think that's a really sensible pathway to achieve that sort of celebrity," he said.